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Birch Creek Acquires Percussion Instruments

1/16/2013 12:00:00 AM

By Bob Dohr

Birch Creek Music Performance Center will have some brand new percussion instruments for the 2013 season.

Birch Creek is announcing the purchase of 20 percussion instruments and supporting hardware, including concert chimes, a 36" Chau gong, a snare drum, a field drum, a five-piece Yamaha stage drum set, five performance cymbals, three classic wood congas, a pair of bongos, and a five-note set of temple blocks. Also purchased were accessories including temple block sticks, and instrument and cymbal stands.

Birch Creek's director of grants Kate Rericha says they're thrilled to have the new instruments.

"It's exciting because it offers faculty members an opportunity to try a different repertoire, it offers students who don't have these instruments themselves a chance to have private lessons and practice when we have our own instruments here," says Rericha. "We're very excited about it."

The acquisition was made possible in part through a grant from The Raibrook Foundation.

Birch Creek faculty members have augmented the project with donations. Symphony Session percussion faculty member Bobby Everson donated a gong stand, and Ben Wahlund, Program Director for the Percussion & Steel Band Session, donated two conga cases. In 2012, a donation obtained through Jazz Program Director Jeff Campbell added a five-piece restored Gretsch drum set to the existing percussion instrument inventory at Birch Creek.

The instruments are pictured in Juniper Hall with Birch Creek Executive Director Alan Kopischke and Percussion & Steel Band Program Director Ben Wahlund. Ben inspected, inventoried, assembled and tested the instruments, which were purchased through local supplier Heid Music Company, Appleton, Wis., and Steve Weiss Music, Pennsylvania. Submitted photos.